There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there too…
And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters:
that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.
Etty Hillesum (1914-1943)

Journey to the Well

I have long referred to my life as a journey – places to go, things to do and learn, truth to discover…God to seek after. As I have pondered over this in recent years, yes it takes years of pondering (contemplation), I recognized that wherever I journey to, I always return home. Contrary to what I thought, my seeking hasn’t led me to more outside myself but has drawn me deeper within. Springing up is a deeper understanding of who I am in relationship with God, with myself, and this world. This Well is life-giving. I can’t reach its bottom. It can feel dry and then be abundant. But the Living Water is there. So, by grace I’ll continue to draw from its depths and share the Life that wells up.

Because…

There is a gap between theology and spirituality, between the academics and the lived experience. We can think from our head. We can live from our heart. But until we bring the head and heart together, we will not wholly live. Drawing from the well, I hope to discover the possibilities of wholeness. The well is my place of grace.
A place to question, embrace, deny, rejoice, and struggle in the desire to understand ourselves, this being we name God, and how we relate with fellow humanity.
A place of grace to acknowledge and accept our universal brokenness; brokenness that takes different shapes and has different causes, yet is broken just the same.
Broken by abuse, poverty, cruelty that perpetuates itself without mercy and with faulty justice.
Broken by ignorance and pride that would deny being broken at all, and thus deny humanity.
A place of grace where in suffering the heartache of being broken, we might discover compassion for ourselves and one another, planting the seed for mercy to grow.
A place of hospitality to be human and in discovering our place at the endless well of grace, learn to live into our best selves; allowing the Living Water to well up and guide how we live in this world.